1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of portable communication devices and more particularly to a portable communication device having a touch-screen locking unit that can prevent operation of the touch screen due to an unwanted screen touch when the portable communication device having a touch screen is unused.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally users may carry one or more portable electronic devices such as a portable communication device, a Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) layer 3 (MP3) player, and a portable multimedia player (PMP) to receive various contents. As is known many of these functions may be operated in a single portable device.
According to demands of consumers, portable electronic devices with multiple functions are being miniaturized. When mobile communication services through the portable electronic devices started to be commercialized only voice communication or short message transmission were used. However, with the high portability and widespread supply of portable terminals, various functions have been added to portable devices. For example, current portable devices may include functions such as an MP3 function, a digital camera function, a camcorder function, a television (TV) function, a video communication function, a wireless local area network (WLAN) function, a Bluetooth function, a fingerprint recognition function, a game machine function, a digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) function, an electronic dictionary function, etc. Accordingly, the portable terminals are being used as “digital multimedia devices”.
The portable communication devices as described above may be classified into a bar type terminal, a flip type terminal, a folder type terminal, and a slide type terminal according to its outward form. Input units of the portable terminals may be classified into a button type input unit and a touch type input unit for performing an input operation by a direct touch on a liquid crystal screen.
A portable communication device having a button type input unit is generally provided with a printed circuit board (PCB) on one face thereof and a keypad on an upper portion of the PCB, so that a user may input desired information by pressing the keypad. The use of the button type input unit has a problem in that the keypad fault easily occurs since buttons are frequently used and access to a computer or the portable device becomes difficult.
To solve the above-described problem, there has been proposed a touch-screen input unit using a touch screen to which desired information may be directly input by making contact with a liquid crystal screen. The touch screen is an input unit for inputting information when a user directly touches a display using his/her finger or a stylus pen. Through direct touches on a display, the touch screen may provide inputs for all functions and may input menu and function keys.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating part of a portable communication device having a touch screen and FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a state in which a touch-screen locking unit is provided on a side of a portable communication device having a touch screen. As illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, a large-sized display having a touch screen function (not illustrated) is provided on a main body housing 11 of a portable communication device 10. A stylus pen 12 for performing a function by making contact with the touch screen is provided on an inner side of the main body housing 11.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, the stylus pen 12 may be provided on a mounting groove 13 of the main body housing 11. Although not illustrated, the stylus pen 12 may be attached to or detached from a fixing loop provided on one side of the main body housing 11, like an accessory of the portable communication device 10. Since a space for mounting button keys to input information of numbers or characters is not required, the portable communication device 10 having the touch screen function may use a front surface of a wide housing as a display. Accordingly, the user may widely use the display in a DMB, game, or camera mode.
As illustrated in FIG. 2, a touch-screen locking unit 14 is provided to prevent an unwanted operation due to contact with the touch screen when a portable communication device not in use or to prevent a function or operation due to an unwanted contact with the touch screen while a user performs communication using the portable communication device 10. The locking unit 14 disposed on a side, top, bottom, front side, or backside of the terminal moves in a vertical or horizontal direction, thereby locking or unlocking the touch screen.
However, there is a problem in that the user must turn on/off the locking unit 14 at every use. Since the locking unit 14 is provided on an outer portion of the portable communication device 10, there is a problem in that the function or operation of the portable communication device 10 may be caused by an unwanted change from the OFF state to the ON state when the user carries the device 10, or the locking unit may be deformed or defective due to a frequent ON/OFF operation. When the locking unit 14 is provided on the outer portion of the portable communication device 10, the aesthetics of the portable communication device 10 may also be degraded.
Accordingly, a need exists for a portable communication device having a touch-screen locking unit, which can automatically turn on/off the locking unit of the portable communication device having a touch screen and prevent the malfunction of the portable communication device by preventing a change according to an external environment. Also, a need exists for a portable communication device having a touch-screen locking unit, which can automatically turn on/off a locking unit of a touch input unit according to mounting of a stylus pen in the portable communication device having a touch screen.